Financing

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary is working to modify financing for a nuclear plant being built by Russia so it only starts repaying the loan once the two reactors begin supplying power, a Hungarian minister said, after an EU review of the plans contributed to delays in the project.

The existing 2 Gigawatt Paks plant, which accounts for half of Hungary's power capacity and meets a third of consumption, started up in the 1980s and will be decommissioned in the 2030s.

The bill for closing down and cleaning up the world’s ageing nuclear reactors will exceed $100bn over the next 25 years alone, the leading energy watchdog has said, warning that governments risk underestimating the cost.

With almost 200 reactors due to be shut down by 2040, the International Energy Agency says in its annual report there are “considerable uncertainties” about decommissioning costs, reflecting governments’ limited experience in safely dismantling nuclear plants. In the last 40 years, only 10 reactors have been closed down.

Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) and Areva bickered at one another on Monday over an updated schedule for the completion of construction and start-up of a third unit at the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant in Eurajoki, Satakunta.

Areva on Monday revealed that it expects to complete construction on the site in 2016 but reminded that commissioning the new unit will require an additional two years. As a result, the third unit is not expected to generate electricity to the national grid until the end of 2018.

MOSCOW—Russia's largest lender Sberbank (SBER.MZ +0.11%) has agreed to provide a loan of €870 million ($1.18 billion) to Slovenske Elektrarne, some of which Slovakia's largest power company will have to spend on Russian nuclear exports, the companies said Tuesday.

The deal signed Monday follows a memorandum of understanding the two parties sealed at an international business forum in St. Petersburg in May, which came against a backdrop of cooling relations between Russia and the West over Ukraine crisis.

(Reuters) - Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank are quietly trying to get out of a business few people know they are even in: trading supplies of raw uranium known as yellowcake.

In the last four years, the banks have amassed low-grade stockpiles of the nuclear fuel ingredient larger than those held by Iran, and enough to run China's nuclear plants for a year.

Goldman's uranium business can trace its roots back to an apartheid-era South African trading conglomerate that sold Iran its only known source of foreign yellowcake 35 years ago. To this day, that uranium delivery underpins Iran's disputed enrichment program, which western powers fear is aimed at developing atomic weapons, although Iran denies that.

PARIS (Reuters) - Areva is in talks with the French government to release some funds set aside for dismantling its nuclear installations in France to help the company finance a new British nuclear reactor, a newspaper reported.

Britain signed a deal with France's state-owned utility EDF in October to build a 16-billion pound nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point in southwest Britain, the first new plant in Europe since the Fukushima disaster.

As the FT reported on Friday, negotiations on the terms for new nuclear have advanced and there is increasing optimism that a deal can be done. The meeting between David Cameron and Francois Hollande in Paris two weeks ago amounted to a declaration of agreement in principle. Just three issues remain to be resolved.

WARSAW, April 2 (Reuters) - Poland will need to provide some form of state support for its long-awaited nuclear plant that is expected to cost $15 billion, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday.

Poland, the European Union's largest eastern member, originally planned to launch a 3 gigawatt nuclear plant by 2023 and to double that capacity by 2030 to reduce its dependence on highly polluting coal.

Lithuania's prime minister says ending support in 2020 could delay the full closure of its Ignalina plant.

Leaders of the European Union's member states are expected at their summit next week (7-8 February) to agree to cover roughly half the costs of decommissioning Soviet-era nuclear power plants, as part of a deal on the EU's long-term budget.

The Government is planning to write a "blank cheque" to the nuclear industry by underwriting the cost of new power stations, leading energy academics have claimed in a letter to The Independent.

Under a major policy U-turn being considered by ministers, the taxpayer would be left to cover the cost of budget over-runs or building delays at new nuclear plants. Costly setbacks are almost inevitable with such complex construction projects.